You should have told it like it was, Tony

So what do we WMD hawks think now? Not a dodgy weapon in sight and the inspectors running round in Iraq calling for the missing evidence as if it were an absconded cat.

The problem, though, is not the soundness of the WMD arguments over Iraq. It is the use that was made of them and the expectations that were created - most strongly by the Blair government in the run-up to the war, that Iraq was bristling with illicit weapons.

It was the blasted dossier that made the intelligence sound cast-iron and it took no account of any changes that might be made by Saddam as war approached

Few - if any - of the leading figures in intelligence or the weapons inspectorate ever claimed that there would be a great cache of WMD waiting to greet western inspectors when Saddam fell. Did the intelligence services think that the weapons capacity was more advanced than it was? Yes, in all probability they did.

"It turns out we were all wrong," says Dr David Kay, the retiring head of the Iraq Survey Group, about the state of WMD in the approach to war.

We were all fumbling in the dark for one overwhelming reason: Saddam refused to comply with the international community's requirement to account for missing weapons stocks.

He continued to play a game of bluff with the West (and more immediately Iran) right to the eve of destruction.

What were we, realistically, to make of that? On what grounds would you have given Saddam the benefit of the doubt?

The French and German intelligence services - whose governments fiercely opposed the war - held the same view of his WMD capability as the US and UK governments who supported it. Up to now, the Prime Minister has refused to countenance an independent inquiry, as called for now by both opposition parties.

I think he is wrong about this. It is reasonable to say that it is still too early for such an inquiry since the Survey Group has not reached its full conclusions and today's Iraq is far from an easy place to gain a rounded picture of what happened.

But Mr Blair should certainly promise an inquiry when the facts are fully established. He should do so because the perception that the intelligence services somehow failed in a general sense is taking hold - without any reasonable assessment of their performance under the circumstances. And he should especially do so now that Lord Hutton has failed to explore the wider matter of the handling of intelligence and communications by No 10.

AN inquiry would help stop the droning chorus of "we went to war on a lie". We did not. But there is some truth in the accusation that the war was sold to the public in terms which suggested a far more solid picture of the Iraq weapons than we possessed - and democratic governments should admit their mistakes as well as trumpet their victories. As for us WMD toughies, we too should welcome the most thorough investigation into the run-up to the war. It will show up errors, I do not doubt that. But it will also be an overdue reminder of the fundamental things about Saddam's Iraq that are being swept away in the present spasm.

The most nuanced of the UN inspectors, Rolf Ekeus, always cautioned about the wisdom of making claims of what would or would not be found in Iraq.

Mr Blair and his spin doctors should have listened more to him. But asked what he thinks post-war, Mr Ekeus has said simply: "It is not plausible that Saddam, had he been given the chance to continue in power, would have given up his aggressive and destructive ambitions."

That, in the end, is was why the war was fought. Mr Blair should have been bolder in telling it like it was.